← Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams
Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams
What's the future of organizing? + Ken Martin with Vote Save America’s Shaniqua McClendon (Crooked Con)
01:40:53
Live from Crooked Con, Shaniqua McClendon, Vice President of Politics at Crooked Media, hosts Maurice Mitchell of the Working Families Party, Ezra Levin of Indivisible, DeRay Mckesson of Pod Save the People, Kate Barr of Can’t Win Victory Fund, and Melissa Morales of Somos Votantes to talk about the best ways to contact and engage the low-information voters we know we desperately need. Then, Shaniqua McClendon sits down with the chairman of the DNC, Ken Martin to answer questions about how the party is rebuilding and where we go from here.
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- [00:01]
A
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- [03:11]
B
Hi, everyone. Thank you for coming. I am Shaniqua McClendon. As was mentioned before we get started with the substance of our panel, I just wanted to thank ActBlue, one of our sponsors, for today. I have said this so many times, but I really do mean it. ActBlue has been a driving force behind Vote Save America, the program that I run at Crooked Media. We've raised about $70 million since we started Vote Save America in 2018. Yeah, I'd say like 99.9% of that has come through ActBlue. We've been able to send money directly to candidates, to organizations, and in 2018, we even had candidates reaching out to us to say the fundraising that you all did through Vote Save America brought us back into the black after not knowing how they were going to make it through the end of the election. And these are people who helped flip the house in 2018. So thank you to ActBlue for powering so much of the progressive movement. And we're just really appreciative of their support for today. So. So thank you. Okay, so, hi again, everyone. I'm Shaniqua McClendon, and we are live here at our first Crooked Con. We are really excited that you all joined us for this, really excited for our panelists. And I'm just gonna go down and introduce everyone, but you will be able to hear from them directly about the amazing work that they're doing. Right next to me, we have Kate Barr, who runs Can't Win Victory Fund. Ye. And then we have Melissa Morales, who runs Somos Votantes. Yes, I got that right. Sorry, I took like four years of Spanish, but I'm self conscious about it, so. And then next to Melissa, we have Maurice Mitchell with the Working Families Party. And next to Maurice, we have Ezra Levin from Indivisible. And all the way on the end, we have Deray McKesson, who is the host of Pod Save the People. Okay, I've had like two talks already this morning, and I'm just going to say it again. I'm really excited about what happened Tuesday. I hope you all are excited and we're happy that you all can be here right now after such an amazing day. And, you know, I want to take us back to a not so fun time, which was the. The 2016 election. After that, we saw some good come out of that, Donald Trump was president. But we saw a lot of innovation and creativity come into the organizing space, and all of that work paid off in 2018, 2020. And I think you would have to go back to probably 2008 to think about the last time we really saw a lot of excitement and innovation around the way we organize and mobilize voters. But after last year's election, I think we can all agree that it's something we need to think more about. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers showed up for Kamala Harris's campaign, and a lot of money was raised, but that was not enough to turn her candidacy into a presidency. But this week, on Tuesday, we saw people like Zoran Mamdani Wen, who ran an amazing campaign that really just motivated and inspired a lot of people. So I think we can say that there are some bright spots, but people are trying different things. So I would love to go down and we can start with Kate and make our way down to deray. I would love for you to each talk about how you've effectively broken through with the kind of work that you're doing in this moment. Also would like for you to introduce yourselves a little bit more. I know I said your name, but didn't go into depth about your work. But particularly, I want to know how the work you're doing in this moment is effective and why and how you're approaching things differently. And I'll just add one more thing. In thinking back to your past work, do you feel like you're being more effective now in this moment?
- [07:14]
C
That's a lot of questions. I'm gonna do my best.
- [07:16]
B
I'm sorry. That's how I moderate. I love it.
- [07:19]
C
I'm just gonna talk for a while. I'm Kate Barr. I ran for State Senate in North Carolina in 2024 as Kate Barr. Can't Win. It was a protest campaign against gerrymandering. I declared my loss on the day I filed for office and. And kind of thought I was just gonna go back to my day job after getting my ass kicked electorally. But it actually, that campaign had an impact beyond just my little protest. We flipped our votes to Ds. We had voter turnout that was comparable to 2020. We were one of only eight counties in North Carolina that got bluer. And so we were like, man, we should try this in other places. And launched the Can't Win Victory Fund, where. Thanks. We basically help candidates. We call them candidates because we're cute. Run out loud, and they lose out loud, and they talk about Our broken maps, our rigged voting maps, how those maps affect people's daily lives. Because the entire purpose of these campaigns is to. To take gerrymandering out of the space of something you write a poli sci thesis on and help people understand how it affects the money in their pockets, the traffic on their way to work, who their kids, teachers are, what books their kids can read. Literally everything you care about is affected by how our voting maps are drawn. So we started the Can't Win Victory fund. We worked really hard in a rough fundraising season, and I think at this point we have just over 200 folks who have raised their hands to be interested in running as candidates in 2026. And what makes me most excited about that and why I think this is even more effective is there are so 81% of our state legislative districts are not competitive across America and that's 81% of Americans who are effectively being left out of state level politics. That means they probably don't have a politician or a candidate knock on their do. They may have never been canvassed. And we are sending charismatic, smart, authentic, honest people out to run for office. Knock on those doors and engage voters that we've left behind and it makes a difference. I think we are. I mean, like, I never expected gerrymandering to be the hot topic that it has become in frankly the worst possible way. But we are well positioned to put a lot of political pressure on the system as a whole, to make elections fair, to expect fairness from our system. And then in North Carolina, our path to fair maps runs through our state Supreme Court. And it is incredibly important that we reelect justice anita earls in 2026. And so all of our candidates will knock doors and say things like, I'm Kate Barr, you're losing candidate for Senate District 37. I'm running because voters deserve a choice on their ballot. If you think it's wrong that I've already lost before a ballot is cast, let me talk to you about how we get fair maps and let me talk to you about Justice Anita Earls and then PS future Senator Roy Cooper. So we're going to turn out some votes for statewide elections too.
- [10:57]
D
Nice.
- [11:00]
B
I can't tell if you just have a lot of fans or are there a lot of North Carolinians in here? But either way, it's north. Yeah, we're both from North Carolina.
- [11:09]
C
You know, I roll deep.
- [11:10]
B
Shaniqua, Melissa.
- [11:13]
D
Hi everyone. Melissa Morales, founder and president of Somos Voldantes and Somos pac. You can call us Somos if that's easier. But don't ever apologize for trying to say it, because we should all be polishing our Spanish ahead of Bad Bunnies. So super bowl performer, there you go. But just to talk a little bit about our program, which is the thing, I could talk about it forever. It's the thing that most excites me in life. To take us back to the context for our program this year, which is very different than program we've run in the past. I'll take us back not quite to 16, but to a year ago this week when it felt like everybody in my life, from our biggest donors to my favorite bartender, were asking the same question, which was what the happened with Latino voters? And at the time I'd said it, and I will say it again, based on the 300,000 conversations that we had with Latinos last year, it didn't feel like we were in the middle of what was a permanent ideological realignment, or at least it didn't have to be or become a permanent ideological realignment based on the. If we had 300,000 conversations, we had one conversation.
- [12:23]
E
And.
- [12:24]
D
And it was a referendum on people's personal economic experiences, their everyday economic lives. And the reality is that the pandemic created this environment that exacerbated people's everyday economic anxieties, and that never went away. In our latest poll, we asked people if they live comfortably in their everyday economic lives. 14% of Latinos said yes. 1, 4. And that's the sort of stress that people have been under. And there's this really illustrative moment as we were thinking about what kind of program, who we wanted to be this year, that really stuck out to me and should have been a warning bell about the types of shifts and erosion that we might see, which was during the height of the pandemic, the economic stimulus checks were going out. I remember my dad, who's a blue collar southwest Kansas guy, lives in farm country, Kansas, doesn't have a bank account like millions of Americans. He received a paper check in the mail. He went to the local check cashing place to cash that. And I remember he called me after to say I started shaking as they were counting the money out into my hand. It's the most money I've ever had in my hand at one time. And I remember thinking two things. One, that that was a very real moment for people and it wasn't unique to him. Millions of people in this country had that same type of moment, which was evidence of the type of financial stress they had been living under. And if our response to that was to then say, well, if then you voted for Trump, then you sold out for a check and I hope your family gets deported, or I hope you lose your health care or whatever unhelpful narrative is making its way around the Internet, then we're part of the problem still because it means we want to be right more than we want to reach people. And the second thing to that end was it is unacceptable that that story is true. It means that our economic policies have left people behind and the impacts of them have left people behind. It means the economic trade offs that we've made in policy over the course of the last four years had left working people behind. I think a lot about the day that the family care provisions of the Inflation Reduction act were left on the table. That's what we chose to give up. I don't know if we lost the election that day, but I know that those types of choices matter. As we came into this year, I genuinely believed deeply then, and even more so now, that if we're going to respond to the frustrations of working people in this country, we are going to need to do so by speaking directly to them and speaking directly to their daily needs. I think there's incremental ways that we can do that and then there's big ways that we can do that. We saw future elect Mayor Mamdani do that in New York. He spoke to these big economic vision needs that people could buy into. And then for our program, we've tried to do that by really focusing on what are people's day to day economic needs. So we're running what is a large scale direct services economic program that has meant thousands of backpacks filled with school supplies distributed this month. That will mean thousands of grocery bags filled with Thanksgiving meals that are distributed. Every bag, every book bag, every grocery, every gas card, every gift card is a little bit of rebuilding credibility, it's a little bit of rebuilding trust and it's a little bit of telling people, I see you and I understand that two things can be true at the same time. That over the last four years the Biden Harris administration had delivered amazing historic economic legislation. And you are not feeling the impacts enough of that in your everyday life. And, and if you are not feeling those impacts, then we are failing. And so our program is step by step trying to help people feel the impacts in their everyday lives.
- [16:14]
B
Thank you.
- [16:20]
F
What were the four questions?
- [16:23]
B
Essentially, I want you to talk about the work you do, but why it's breaking through. Like everyone who's on this stage is because I felt like you are doing work that's actually moving the needle. And that is what we need right now. Folks who were making decisions last year, we did a lot of the same stuff and it got us this presidency. And so that's what I want you to speak to for sure.
- [16:45]
F
Hi, Maurice Mitchell, National Director, Working Families Party hello. And so I grew up in the 80s and my mom is a union nurse, my dad was a union electrician. And folks around us, we grew up right outside of New York, a working class place. Everybody voted for Democrats and the Democrats were just kind of the party of everyday people. And the Republicans were kind of like the country club people. And most people understood that to be true. And something happened in the late 90s where things got icky, where, you know, the Democrats made a decision to lurch towards Wall street. And that was this era where they, you know, they co signed, passing NAFTA and the free trade agreements and welfare reform and that horrible 94 crime bill. And at the time, there were people at the time, people in labor organizations, people in grassroots organizations, activists that said, this is a very bad idea, you're going to lose working people. And they were like, what are you talking about? Where are they going to go? They're not going to go to the Republicans. And so fast forward to November of 2024. By the way, those people in grassroots organizations and labor institutions, they started the Working families Party in 1998 in New York, right? And so fast forward and we weren't surprised, right? Like the political scientists call it, call it class dealignment, right? I just call it stupid politics, right? And so we weren't surprised that working class people of all races, many dropped out of politics altogether because there's 90 million people that did not show up because it's this cycle of cynicism where people who aren't like MAGA sort of cultish people could see, like, yes, there's a crazy party run by racist, but then there's the status quo party and we're told we only have two choices. So reasonably many people just drop out and leads to cynicism and it leads to that 90 million number. And some people are like, well, if the choice is crazy and strong or status quo and weak, let me try this crazy and strong shit and see what happens. And some people did that. They're not MAGA people, but given how horrible daily life for most working people, and by the way, the way they talk about it, they're like the bottom 60% of Americans are Struggling to make ends meet. That's called the majority of fucking people in this.
- [19:47]
E
Right?
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F
So that's what's happening to most people. It's not surprising that when the only party that is at least saying the entire system is fucked up and we want to actually change the entire system, it's not surprising that some people vote in that direction. So here we are this week, by the way, I've decided to just be obnoxious this week because democracy had a wonderful day and the Working Families Party had an excellent week this week. So I bring good tidings and halal food from Zoram Dani's New York City. Yeah, I mean, they're just. They're like, halal food is delicious. And I would be the first to be like, yeah, just mandate it everywhere. It's fine. But what I'm actually. And so we could go on and on and on about New York City. By the way, in New York City, we have a party line in the Working Families Party, so people could vote on the Working Families Party line. You could do that in Connecticut. You could do that in Oregon. And we had the most votes for the Working Families Party in any mayoral race. It's historic. It's 15% of the vote was the work. We beat the Republicans. So you can't call us the third party anymore. Right. In New York City. In New York City, you cannot call us a third party anymore. But I'm also excited about, and I think sometimes people give Zoron a frenemy bear hug and talk about how amazing he is and what a generational talent he is, and all those things are true. But I have a sneaky suspicion when I see people on the 24 hour news channel that I know hate us and hate him, praise him. And I think one of the reasons they do that is so that they could frame Zoran's victory as exceptional. It could only happen in New York. It could only happen with Zoran. And I'm like, all right, explain how the Working Families Party backed candidate for one in Albany, in Syracuse, in Buffalo, and will be joining Zoran. Explain to me and still in New York State. Explain to me how in the Newburgh City Council the Working Families Party was able to, in a general election to defeat the Democrat. Yeah, we actually run people as third party people. And we had five people who beat the Democrat and the Republican and will be sitting in Onondaga where we flipped from red to blue. Right. Not only did we flip from red to blue, so Onondaga, these are just random county Names. I could be making it up, by the way, but trust me, we flipped from red to blue, but we also flipped to WFP orange. There's gonna be somebody sitting there that is an independent. And then also explain away the fact that in Dayton, Ohio, our candidate defeated the incumbent. Right, Explain. Yeah, you could clap for that. And I could go on and on and on with fake county names and fake people. But the point I'm making here is that something is happening in this country, right? These type of independent politics that WFP has been toiling on for years and years and years. I like to say that leaders like Zoram, because we knew Zoram, because he was a WFP assembly person that governed with our independent assembly people in New York, but many people didn't know Zoran until recently. I like to say that leadership is not just about individuals. It's when individuals meet time, place and condition. And I think that's also for ideas and institutions. And this is a moment for the crazy idea that the folks that started WFP in 1998, this is a moment where an idea and an institution is meeting the time, place and conditions and. And I couldn't be more proud. And I will wait after and sign everybody up for their WFP because, look, the Democrats are polling at 18 or 20%, which means that most Democratic Party adherents are like, we're voting for you and we think you suck. I think we can do better. If you agree with me, come join the Working Families Party.
- [24:34]
B
Great pitch, great pitch, Ezra.
- [24:37]
E
I love that Maurice is showing us that every moment is an organizing moment. And recruit, recruit, recruit.
- [24:42]
F
Always organized.
- [24:45]
E
Hey, everybody, I'm Ezra, one of the co founders of Indivisible. I appreciate that. Look, we started Indivisible accidentally for folks who don't know. Look, Trump was elected in 2016. My spouse Leah and I, we were. I'm sorry, we were former congressional staffers. Don't hold that against us. But we were congressional staffers during the Obama first term and second term. We were advocates. Me on anti poverty, her on anti human trafficking issues. And this amazing thing happened in 2016 because Trump won. And the response of the broader Democratic ecosystem was not, holy shit, he won. We gotta fight back. We had experienced the Tea Party. We experienced massive electoral majorities for a popular Democrat with trifecta government. And the response of the Republican grassroots was, fuck that guy. We're gonna organize against him and stop everything he wants to do. And the Democratic response to Trump's first election was, let's figure out how we can Work together. And we're like, what the hell is going on? We've seen what works. Look, disagree with the Tea Party's racism, their violence, their bigotry. There's a lot to disagree with. God damn. They were smart about organizing. They knew how to organize locally, focus on their elected officials and never give an inch. And they weren't able stop everything. Look, we got Dodd Frank, we got the aca, we got national service reform, big stimulus package. We did some stuff, but we also got the 2010 Red Wave. We got absolutely clobbered. And so when we saw how the broader Democratic establishment was responding, we were saying, okay, that's fucked up, that's not politically smart, and it's gonna cause a lot of damage. So we wrote a Google Doc, as one does. Obviously, that's the natural thing to do. So we were like, let's write a Google Doc. We'll get it together and we'll send it out because something has to happen. Maybe somebody will use it. And so we wrote this guy, like, drawing on the lessons from the Tea Party that we saw with our own eyes, and said, look, you can organize locally, you can stiffen Democratic spines, you can try to fracture the Republican coalition, you build towards an electoral win, stop what you can, stall what you can, and ultimately win back power. And we put it out online and shockingly, it went viral. And we were just inundated with all these messages from really all across the country that all said the exact same thing. This guide is full of typos. Because if you want something copy edited, just put it out there and people, people will do that. But then the cool thing beyond that was what they said is like, and I've got an indivisible group now that's meeting this weekend in Austin, in Tallahassee, in Albany, wherever it is. And what are we going to do? And we're like, we just wrote a Google Doc. I don't know. You figure it out. And so we started Indivisible to support this movement of local groups. And these are the groups that pushed to save the Affordable Care act in 2017, pushed for the blue wave in 2018, pushed Democratic leadership to impeach the bastard in 2019, pushed to defeat him in 2020, build a Democratic trifecta in 2021, stop the red wave in 2022, win an off year elections in 2023. And then we all lost in 2024. Not a totally happy story. And then what happened in 2024? Something that we saw that happen in 2016, which we have America's Mussolini win the election with a Republican trifecta. And the response from the Democratic leadership is, well, we gotta figure out ways to work with Mussolini. That was the response. And so when the Democratic establishment immediately proved it learned no lessons from the previous eight years, we wrote a Google Doc. And the Google Doc made a couple points. One, fascism did not win. As we've heard from Maurice and what we've heard from the other panelists. What won was a belief that something better than the status quo was possible. And even if that was blowing up the system, even if he didn't like the guy, at least it wasn't the shit we were dealing with now. And people were willing to hold their nose and vote for somebody else. And us in the opposition needed to do what opposition does well, which is oppose what this guy was planning to do. And we all knew what it was. Project 2025 was out there. We knew what was coming. And. And what we've seen this year is astonishing. The rapid growth of indivisible groups in 2017 is dwarfed by what we see now. There are four to five new indivisible groups every single day. These are normal, everyday people who are standing up. And what we've seen is that Democratic establishment that, again, started by saying, let's feel how we can work with this Mussolini character in America. They saw the hands off protests in April. They saw no kings in June. They saw no kings in October. And they said, oh, shit, maybe the wind is blowing a different way. That's how this works. So I'm optimistic that not that some Democratic politician is suddenly gonna see the light, but that there are enough people out there that are pissed off and recognize that they have power that they're gonna be able to push back.
- [29:29]
B
Yeah, thanks.
- [29:34]
G
Hi, everybody. I'm deray. It is great to be on a panel with people who do electoral organizing, because I don't do that that much. So I'm like, this is cool. I'm an organizer. I was one of the early protesters in Ferguson when the police killed Mike Brown and the host of Pod Save the People. It's crazy to think that the Protest started in 2014. I'll just say a couple of things. One is, you know, I thought the work was gonna be trying to figure out how to convince people and push people and da, da, da. What I realized very quickly after we started Campaign Zero was that what is true and not true is actually a little more complicated than I thought around the work of public safety. The reason why we sort of Stay in the public safety space is in almost every election in all communities, the issue of safety just becomes the issue. It just is the thing. And I sort of feel like if we can convince people around the police, I can convince you of anything in the world, because people feel very strongly about the police. But I'll ask you first. I'm assuming that most of you have heard of private prisons or the idea of private prisons. I'll ask you to raise your hand, because I'm trying to figure out how many people you think are incarcerated in a private prison. If you think it is more than 75% of the 2 million people incarcerated on a given day are in a private facility, raise your hand. Okay? 50 to 75%. 25 to 50%. And under 25%, it is 8%. It's really low. It's a little bit under 8%. And the reason why I start there is that it is one of the stories that people just believe. They're like, everybody's in a private facility. And the reason why it matters to us is not because we're, like, annoyed at the storytelling, but what people de facto do when they think that it's private facilities is that you've let your governor and mayor off the hook and. And you don't even know it. It is your governor or mayor who are locking people up, who are allowing the horrible conditions. It's not a private facility. And I think in our work, we come across these things time and time again where people just don't know what's true. We have a campaign on gang enhancements in 38 states. If you're in a gang, you can get an extra penalty. One of the questions we had to figure out is how many people's in a gang. In 30 states, it is three. And you're like, three people is not a gang. Three people might be annoying, but they're not a gang. You know what I mean? And it's one of those things that, like, how can we help people and communities understand, like, what is policy? And you do have a perspective on the number of people in a gang. We go to a lot of communities. People are like, I don't do policy. We're like, you believe three is too low. Now, we might fight about what the number could be, but three is not the right number. Another of our campaigns that I'll talk about briefly and then talk about. The second thing about storytelling is pay to stay. We just launched this campaign, and every state but two. It is legal to charge people room and board for Their incarceration. So we go into states in Massachusetts, they can charge 15% of your work release funds are recouped for rent or room and board in Massachusetts. So we go talk to legislators and they're like, we don't do that here. We're like, no, no, you do do that here. They're like, no, we don't do that. I'm like, no, no, I got the FOIA data. That's how much they take it. You know, it's one of those things where we go into the room and half the battle is being like, what is true and not true. I didn't think that would be our work, but you'd be shocked at how much we actually just haven't uncovered about the carceral system. But the second thing I'd say that does, and that does tie into the electoral work is like, what is the story we tell? One of the things that I'm mindful of is that we have to share the cognitive burden with people we're trying to recruit into organizing. And we have to get off the defense about the things that we are just absolutely right about. People feel really strongly about the police. So when I go into rooms, I don't really talk about the police as a police, but I'll say, do you need a person with a gun to tell a 10 year old to stop yelling? It's an easy way for me to talk about police in schools. And do you need a person with a gun to television tail lights out? It's an easy way for me to talk about traffic stops. We talk about a world beyond policing. And people are like, this is crazy. And I'll ask you think of the place where you feel the most safe. Like, just get it in your mind. You're like, I feel safe here. Raise your hand if the police are in that place. So we tell people, you already know what a world beyond policing looks like. You already know what safety feels like. And we want whatever was in that room to be in everybody's room. But part of that is like, how do we share the cognitive work? And the last thing I'll talk about is gangs. I was doing an interview once and Chris Matthews, he's like, deray, you know, gangs are taking over. The gangs are crazy. What do you think about gangs? And I was like, chris, gangs are crazy. We gotta do something about gang. Gang violence is maybe the number one issue in the country. And the biggest gangs I know are the New York City Police Department, the Baltimore City Police Department, and the, you know, it's like, like how do we fight people on the message every single time and sort of convert people and change what people think about things one by one? And I believe that we can always find like one story to convince people. We don't need to convince people everything every time. But when I'm talking about the people, about the police, I'm trying to tell like one good story to get them to think differently about what safety looks like. I'm trying to give up a little bit. You know, people would say, deray you saying the police should never kill somebody? And I'd say, you know, do you have a kid you love? And they're like, yes. And I'm like, tell me the kid's name. And they're like, okay. And I'm like, well, what could that kid do that you're okay for the police to kill him? Like, is it a robbery? Is it running a red light? Like, what for the person you love, when is it okay for the police to kill that child? And people are like, what do you mean? I'm like, well, every person killed is somebody's kid, so when is it okay for them to kill the kid you love? But that is an exercise in sharing the cognitive burden for people with people not doing all the work ourselves because we will yell and yell and yell and we'll be blue in the face and people will not have changed their minds at all. Part of our work is to push people to think deeper as we bring them into the organizing space.
- [35:19]
A
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H
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- [37:59]
B
Melissa, the next question is for you. The work that you are talking about and doing is not starting with asking people to vote. You're building trust with them, which I think is something we saw was really important last year, that when people trust that you are going to rebuild their economic situation, they might listen, they might come in, they might vote for you. Can you talk about how the work you're doing that isn't necessarily electoral on its face actually does bring people into civic participation?
- [38:31]
D
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's important for us to realize, which was pretty stark after a year ago this week, that we are starting at ground zero on trust and credibility in what we believe, who we're fighting for, and most importantly what we can deliver. Because I think we get the pushback a lot. When I talk about the economy it's like, well we did deliver things and we were talking about an economic agenda like okay, but when you were talking about those things, if people don't believe you actually can or will deliver on those things, then that means nothing. So everything we're doing this year is really starting at that. We are starting at square one now of how we're building trust with people. Can we listen to them, hear what their their needs are and then actually deliver that to show them that there can be some impact? And I think we're thinking about it in this everyday type of way Right. Backpacks with school supplies, gas cards, grocery cards. Come hear what we have to say. And you don't need to, you know, don't worry about filling up your tank or your fridge this week. Let's just be in community with each other. Because that was sort of the second thing we found last year, especially with young voters, was that when we asked them to define community, they really couldn't. Even when we pushed pretty hard, they couldn't define what the core of community meant. And if we've lost that, we've lost a big part of, I think, who we want to be when we think about what we can collectively do together and what we can collectively demand together. And the core idea that we should give a shit what happens to our neighbor, and we should give a shit about the people around us. And so everything we're doing this year is about rebuilding that trust and rebuilding community. If it was just we were doing these things and we were delivering something good, I think that would be enough in a year where shit's really hard and we're like, what's the slice of good we can deliver in the world? But there is a way to do this and also be strategic. I think every time somebody comes and they're picking up this backpack or they're picking up this grocery bag, they're also filling out an involvement card. That involvement card gives me everything that we need for our organizers to contact them again and to match them back to the voter file to figure out are they involved, how do we get them involved? How do we get them up that ladder? And part of it is, like, we could just distribute to homes, and sometimes we do. But it's also really important for us to be bringing people together in spaces. We had our last backpack event in August in a parking lot in the middle of Milwaukee, and we had 1200 families come through that parking lot. That's where it was four straight hours of a line. And we had learned over the course of trial and error, we're like, okay, well, how do we get people, though, to stay and communicate with each other instead of just picking up and leaving? So we started implementing at the end of each of these events, we're also going to raffle off five $500 gift cards, but you have to be present to win. And we don't do it till the very end. So people are staying for the entire event. And as they're staying, they're taking that SOMO shirt and they're putting it on. That's building a brand as they're Staying, they're having conversations with their neighbors. That's building community. And as they're staying, our organizers are also working the crowd. That's building power. And so all of those things, I think, are a way to do some good in the world and deliver what we say we want to deliver while also continuing to be strategic and build power.
- [42:04]
B
Yeah, that is great. And I'd say it does a lot of work for the Democratic Party, who talks a lot about these issues, but people don't actually feel it in there every day like you were mentioning. Ezra. Andre, this next question is, is for you again, just really want to shine a light on things that have been breaking through in a moment in our political landscape where it's really hard to break through. Mass mobilizations are an absolute cornerstone of our American democracy. And you, too, have been at the forefront of movements that have changed the country, organizing some of the largest protests in history, like Black Lives Matter and no Kings, and these are movements that have even spread to other countries. But right now, we're seeing a lot of, quite frankly, alarming challenges to mass mobilizations. And, Ezra, for Indivisible, your organization is one that Donald Trump has specifically named as being one that he wants to target and go after.
- [43:11]
E
What a compliment.
- [43:15]
B
But, you know, I can't imagine that that feels. Feel safe, but I think that means that the work that you're doing is really effective. And so in being kind of on his target list, I'm curious how you all are navigating the uptick and his efforts to just censor people and deray. After Ezra answers that, I would love to hear how you're thinking about the scrutiny from Trump's dog. Sorry, I typed doj. Doj. I guess it could be the same thing. Trump's.
- [43:45]
E
What's the Department of Transportation doing?
- [43:48]
B
Trump's Department of Justice into Black Lives Matter, but also your case that went to the Supreme Court, which to me, again, was another effort to pretty much silence effective voices.
- [44:00]
E
Well, one thing I'd say it's very proud of Indivisible's role in no Kings. It's not just us, Maurice. Working families party, MoveOn, 5051, unions, SEIU, AFT. This is a massive coalitional effort, not just us. So we should say they're all being targeted. We're all being targeted. This is not a normal administration. I say regime. I try to say regime. If I remember, I say regime. I think of it as an authoritarian regime and that the hallmarks of an authoritarian regime are not just that they're cutting Taxes for billionaires and cutting healthcare for the rest of us. It's that they're attacking the other sources of power and trying to concentrate power in their hands. So that means businesses, that means law firms, media, institutions, universities, and also political opponents. So, yes, the number one thing an authoritarian regime fears is peaceful opposition, mass protest, because it depends on making people feel like they are alone. Because if you are alone and powerless, they can run roughshod over you. So it is no surprise to me that they are coming at us now. The only way they would not be coming at us is if we were ineffective. So in the world that we are in, I would far rather be the target of their ire, both legally and the saber rattling their supporters are doing through physical threats, than just be entirely irrelevant. This is the better world. It means that actually care what we're doing. What do they say? First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win, y'. All. We're one step from winning because they're fighting us. So what do we do? Our mantra is be brave, not stupid. Be brave, not stupid. We need a lot of courage out there. We need people to stand up and recognize there are risks. And it's important that all of us understand those risks. Don't take on risks accidentally. But no, in an authoritarian regime, we're not getting through this unless a lot of people out there stand up and say, yeah, we gotta do this. And the impact of doing that is not just that you bust that bubble of inevitability that the regime wants to create, you're also gonna encourage the people around you. Why is it that the Democrats right now are fighting in the shutdown? Why is that happening now? Why didn't it happen six months ago? They surrendered six months ago. What happened in between those two periods? We had hands off in April. We had May Day. We had John Lewis Day of Remembrance. This is good. Trouble lives on. We had Labor Day. We had no kings won. We had no Kings 2. All of that. What did that do? It busted that bubble of inevitability from the regime. And it made all these folks who were on the sidelines thinking maybe the smart move is just to lay low. Maybe the smart move is to roll over and play dead. They said, oh, no, maybe we got that wrong. A lot of people are standing up. Maybe we should be standing up too. That's the way the wind's blowing. We gotta get there. There go the people. I am their leader, so I must. That is the game plan. So we believe it is important to say this is a time for courage. We need more people to demonstrate courage and understand that courage means there's actual risk here. This isn't fearlessness. There is reasonable fear out there, but it's bravery. It's better than fearlessness. And we do a lot of training, a lot of recruiting, a lot of organizing to get people to see that this is possible for them as well in this moment.
- [47:11]
B
Maurice, I didn't mean to erase you from that question.
- [47:15]
G
I've been interested in what is happening with black people. When I think about the mobilizing in this moment, black people are not coming out in the way that we were coming out in 14, 15, 16. And when I think about the Internet, I'm like, I talk to my father a lot about, who are you listening to, Daddy? I'm like. And he is like, I'm not listening to 20 year olds on Instagram. He's like, that's not my people. So I do think we have to figure out who are black people listening to on the Internet or online or that world. I think we gotta figure out one of the things that was really impressive about Zo Ron. And I love Zoran even more because he went to Bowdoin. I went to Bowdoin, shout out to Bowdoin. But I canvassed for Zoran in Harlem and it was interesting going to some doors because some people, you know, young people are like, we know. Da da. And then some people literally like, what's his name again? You're like, you haven't heard him? And it's people like, she's like, I don't have the Internet. Da, da, da. And it was one of those cool organizing moments that reminded you that, like, showing up really matters. Because when you bet on the Internet, sometimes you get some people, but you lose a whole set of people. So when I think about the mass mobilization piece, I am interested in the strategic absence of black people in this moment, but also who is making sure that we keep that base fresh. And I think one of the learnings from the last 60 years is that winning is not enough. Protecting the win is the second part of the battle. And when I think about our work as the organizers with the electoral people is like, I'm trying to keep the people hot. So when people get elected, people are still pissed off enough to that support the big ideas. Like, that is part of our work. And to the case, I'm still in the case. It did go to the Supreme Court. Sotomayor wrote a very nice sort of note that put it down back to the district courts. I'm being accused of creating the conditions for a police officer to get hit by a rock in Baton Rouge at a protest that I did not organize because that is the allegation, but I did not organize it. So I did not organize and. But I was there. So we've been back and forth. I've been to the fifth Circuit four times. We have four separate opinions from the fifth Circuit. We went to the Supreme Court, the Louisiana State Supreme Court went back to the Supreme Court, we went to district court, it got dismissed, and then it is still in the fifth Circuit. I went to oral arguments at the fifth Circuit and I'm in the courtroom and it's a three judge panel and one of the judges, literally, there's this question of like, did I throw a water bottle? As well as getting the officer hit by a rock. I did not throw a water bottle and did not have a water bottle. But the judge literally says, she's like, a jury might think he did throw it. You're like, is this, like, is this court? This is crazy. But I am lucky in the sense that I have great lawyers. But it is a wild case because if we lose, you'd be able to charge anybody affiliated with the protest or seen as a protest leader with any of the civil damages that result from the protest. So that is sort of the question at hand is can I be charged for the fact that he got hit by a rock? And because we actually have not gone to court, court, I don't know if he actually got hit by a rock because we're dealing with the legal questions of, like, can I be sued for it? But I didn't even know that cases could get this far, that, like, we could go this far down the road without any proof that the thing happened at all. And that was in 20. It started in 2016. So I've been in this case since 2016 and we are still, still going about 10 years.
- [50:28]
B
That's a long time. That's like as long as Donald Trump's been in our lives and doing stuff. Kate, you know, we just heard from Jeray, Ezra and Melissa. And while I think their work ultimately feeds into our democratic process, you took it straight on and, you know, decided to run for office. And in doing so have, I think, ushered in a really interesting and new way to mobilize voters, making sure that they're hearing from someone, even if someone they're hearing from won't win. And you've also been a pretty outspoken opponent, I think a Big voice of opposition in North Carolina, if you care to talk about it, because I did not clear this with you. Some of kind of censorship you may have faced or people. Yes, if you want to talk about that, you can. But also more broadly, I think what you've brought into the conversation is really creative. And I'm interested to know what kind of risks and creativity do you think Democrats generally need to bring to the work they're doing?
- [51:38]
C
Maurice? I'm familiar with the frenemy hug is what I will sort of say there. I don't travel internationally because I've been told my name is on a list and I might not be able to get back into the country, which we're all broke, so it's not that much of a hardship. Like, where am I going to go? We're organizers, we're not wealthy, healthy, and my daughter, God, I've never talked about this in public.
- [52:08]
B
I'm gonna try not to. Oh, my gosh, you don't have to. No, no, no.
- [52:10]
C
I'm gonna do this because it matters. It really, really matters. And here's why. I'm a middle aged suburban mom. I am a white lady with bottle blonde hair. I can put my body in places that no one else can. And my daughter, every night before she goes to bed worries that I'm going to get shot the next day. If that's happening to me, I don't know what the fuck is happening for y'.
- [52:37]
E
All.
- [52:38]
C
That is bananas. Like, I am the safest human on this earth and I won't get on an airplane to go out of the country. So that.
- [52:50]
B
Thank you for sharing. And the reason I asked Kate that question and even the question I asked Ezra and Deray, as people are taking new tactics that are effective, you become targets. And so I really wanted us to spend a little bit of time talking about what it means to actually have an impact and what it looks like when someone says, I don't like that you are successfully opposing me. And so I'm going to target you in some ways, but go ahead.
- [53:14]
C
Well, if it's okay, may I share about how I'm about to become a bigger target? Yes, share that we're a more is more kind of state organization, whatever you want to call it. I mean, we are living under an authoritarian regime. And what we learned on Tuesday is that they are vulnerable right now. And that the corrupt, complacent politicians, many Republican, but not exclusively, are vulnerable right now. And I for one, do not want to give them a year to get their shit Together and figure out how to send a check to everybody and win in 2026. And so surprise y', all, I'm a Republican as of May, and I will be challenging my congressman in the Republican primary.
- [54:13]
A
Thanks.
- [54:18]
C
I cannot imagine that my life is about to get easier. But that vote is on March 3rd. So that is a run that happens right now. They are not ready for it. That's the kind of experimenting we need to be doing. This is a heavily gerrymandered district. Cook Political report has it in a super safe Republican seat. But we can win the fucking primary. That's some low ass turnout.
- [54:48]
B
And do Democrats or do you have to be registered as part of the party? Or can anyone vote in these primaries? Just choosing one primary to vote in?
- [54:59]
C
Republicans and unaffiliated can vote in the Republican primary. This particular district is 38% unaffiliated. That's the majority. There are about 544,000 people that are registered to vote in the district. And I need like 33,000 of those votes to win. So this is the kind of shit we have to be trying. It might not work. I'm great at losing. I'm going to be fine. But we are not living in normal times. We cannot respond in a normal way. And people who look like me need to be leading this charge because despite it all being somewhat unsafe, we are the safest. So hopefully all y' all will if you live in North Carolina. Love my North Carolina. I'm suddenly worried we're a gang. I don't know what's coming next. Anyway, hope you'll vote for me on March 3rd. Your Republican future. Republican Congresswoman.
- [56:13]
B
Given. Okay, Kate's switching parties. Maurice. Okay, Maurice, this next question is for you. And the role of party is not necessarily invading the Republican Party, but the Working Families Party is, you know, a separate party. The Democratic brand, as we've discussed a lot up here today, is pretty damaged. But as we saw in New York, you know, Mamdani. Sorry, Zoran Mamdani had the Democratic nomination and he won. But as you mentioned earlier, I actually saw a video you posted where you were talking to him about the fact that he even voted for himself on the Working Families Party line. And so I'm curious what you think. Why do you think your candidates who are affiliated with the Working Families Party have such a draw and. And is people's interest in them an indication that there's something outside of the two party system that people might be more interested in?
- [57:13]
F
Yeah, I mean, I think like there's a set of people who deeply care about politics, identify with parties, identify with ideology. And if you're one of those people, you kind of assume that that's everybody, but it really isn't, right? And most everyday people who aren't, like me, a political nerd are identifying based on their identity as a mom or their identity as a community member, and they just want shit to get done. And what we've noticed is that people do have strong values. People hate corruption, People deeply hate corruption. And that's something that's like a trans partisan value. So there was this guy who was like Maga for Zoran. I don't know if you saw this guy, right? It might make no sense to you. But what I understand from that is most people know and get that basically there's a set of oligarchs and corporations that kind of prop all of this shit up, right? And there's like, yes, this crazy party and they have their oligarchs and it's kind of, there's one master, this kind of weird puppet king type of guy, and he's kind of an oligarch. But then there's this other party that is like a status quo party that maybe has two masters, the oligarchs and sometimes the people. And people don't like that. And a lot of Democrats do not like that at all. And those two parties are funded by, it turns out like the Republicans are funded by Wall street, aipac, AI Crypto Pharma, Real Estate Lobby, Fraternal Order, Police. The Democrats are funded by Wall street, aipac, AI Crypto Pharma, Fraternal Order of Police. You get what I'm saying? Regular people see this, right? I don't know if you saw that clip of Cory Booker squirming. Just answer a yes or no question. People are tired of this bullshit. And so it creates an opening for a different type of politics. So when you see the Democratic Party is polling at atrocious levels, and so it's not for the working families part for the Democrats to figure out how to improve their brand and God bless the Democrats in that quest. But if you're hanging onto improving the Democratic Party brand as the way that we defeat fascism, then you're signing up to lose. We need people who are running in Republic, like literally, we need. No, we cannot do the politics that led us here. It's crazy to me that the people that led us here, right? So the people that led us here, the people who raised and spent more than a billion dollars on that failed campaign, right, they're not being held accountable. In fact, immediately after, they're writing like, op EDS in the New York Times and the Washington Post. Blaming the groups, blaming wok. Right? There is a group that we should blame, the Mark Cubans of the world, right? There are these interest groups who put the Democratic Party and their candidates in this straitjacket where they almost seem like real people. But then when it comes to answering a yes or no question, is Bibi Netanyahu a war criminal? Yes. The answer is yes. By the way, there's only one correct answer to that question, right? And they end up with this 30 word answer that doesn't include Bibi Netanyahu or war criminal. People just see them, they're like, yuck, what is that? And the thing is, like, people don't need to agree with you. People need to believe in you. It's very different. And it turns out, like, with Zoram, people could agree or disagree on a whole range of things, right? But also understand, like, that's the guy that's gonna help make New York affordable, so I'm voting for him, right? And when you see things like, all right, 104,000, that number, that's the amount of individual volunteers that Zoran had, right? 40. That's the spread of men that went from wherever they were. However, they were voting back to the Democrats through Zoran, right? All of those folks were talking about, where's young men? We need the Joe Rogan of the left, right? We need to babysit men with some idiotic comedian, right. It turns out that men also care about affordability, that men are experiencing a crisis that everybody else is experiencing. And if you're able to talk to everybody like they're adults and just be real and authentic, you could actually build a politics that meets the urgency that everybody's feeling. So when you talk about this idea of third parties. Yeah. Third parties seem kooky to a lot of people, right. And the Democratic Party has largely been governed by fear, right? Fear that if we don't vote blue, no matter who, unless there's Zoran, by the way, that we might lend a victory to the Republican right to wait in line to do all those things. Look, my thing is, I don't know if any of that was ever true. I don't think so. But it certainly is not true today when we have a fascist that's captured the federal government. If we continue to do the politics as we've done them before, and we continue to fit within the box of the Democratic Party as the brand and Only do politics in that way and not seek different ideas and different brands and, like, run people as independents, run people in Republican, run people as Working Families Party people. We are doomed. Look, the Working Families Party brand is. Is actually. It polls very well everywhere. Right. And so it makes more sense for candidates to align with those brands than have to explain away the Democratic Party brand. All of the popular Democrats, the reason they're popular is because part of their brand is why they're not a Democrat.
- [64:10]
B
Yeah.
- [64:11]
F
You know, and so, look, there's a problem here, and Democrats need to face it. I hope Democrats face it. But meanwhile, the Working Families Party's gonna continue to recruit people on the local level and govern with them.
- [64:23]
B
No. So we are unfortunately out of time. Even though you see a little time there, we're out of time. So I just want to thank all of our panelists for joining us today and thank you all for coming in. Even though there's a lot more conversation we could have up here. We can't have it up here, but you know where you can see all these lovely people. I am going to pressure all of them to come to the Vote Save America Action Hub. So we have chairs and couches and stuff, and we want these conversations to be able to continue. I hope that all of you are inspired to support the work that is happening that our panelists spoke about today. And I hope you will ask them how you can get involved to help it, be it a candidacy or helping people with direct services or joining the Working Families Party or getting to a protest. But I hope that the one thing you all do is something, because that is why Crooked Media and Vote Save America and all of these organizations exist. So thank you again and I hope you all enjoy the rest of the conference.
- [65:37]
A
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- [67:25]
H
We sent you want a treatment for your moderate to severe ulcerative colitis you can use at home or on the go? Talk to your doctor about the Antivio pen, an option after at least 2 hours IV starter doses. Intiveo helped many people achieve long term relief and remission at week 52 infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. Entivio may increase risk of infection which can be serious. Pml, a rare potentially fatal brain infection, cannot be ruled out. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu like symptoms, sores or are prone to infections, liver problems can occur. Visit antivio.com today and learn more about the Antivio Pen. Individual Results may vary.
- [68:15]
A
I hope you enjoyed that conversation. Up next you'll hear another key discussion from CricketCon looking at the future of the Democratic Party and how we repair and prepare for what's to come.
- [68:28]
B
Hi, we are live from CrookedCon. I am Shaniqua McClendon. I am the VP of Political Strategy here at Crooked Media and I run Vote Save America and I am here with Ken Martin, the Chair of the Democratic National Committee, DNC. Ken, welcome to CrookedCon.
- [68:47]
I
Oh thank you so much for having me.
- [68:48]
B
It's great to be here and thank you to all of you for being here. I know it's early and this is the first panel going on today, so we appreciate you joining us for such what will be an important and interesting conversation. So to get started I kind of just want to level set. I know a lot of people have thoughts and feelings about what your job is, but you know you've been in this role for nine months. I know last month you did an interview when you said you it's the best job but it makes you want to pull your hair out sometimes. So I would love for you to just kind of start with telling everyone what exactly is your job, and then what are some of those components that make you want to pull your hair out?
- [69:24]
I
Yeah, look, let me say the role of a political party chair at any level is to build permanent and durable infrastructure, right? Infrastructure that candidates can rely on. You know, in 2023, I was down in Mississippi with Brandon Pressley, our candidate for governor, who was tied with the Republican at that time, Tate Reeves. And I asked him, what more could the DNC at that point do to actually help you? And he said, years of indifference, years of disinvestment in Southern states by the national party and other committees has resulted in this moment where I'm on the cusp of being the first Democrat elected to a governorship in the Deep south in a generation. Yet I've got to build all the infrastructure myself. So our job at the DNC is to build the type of infrastructure that allows candidates to plug into and not have to build everything themselves. Right? And that's things like voter protection infrastructure. Right. Voter registration infrastructure, our data infrastructure, our volunteer infrastructure, working with our state and local party committees to, you know, develop that infrastructure throughout the nation. And when I ran for this position, what was critical for me was to make sure that we do that very holistically up and down the ballot and throughout the country. It's really critical that we as a party are not just a party focused on building federal power. One of the real reasons I ran for this is because I've seen over many years now a negligence on the part of the Democratic Party. We just play for one cycle, one candidate or one campaign at the expense of a long term strategy on how we build power up and down the ballot around our agenda. And that's what the conservative movement has done. Now, let me be clear about my statement. People want to focus on the fact that I said, I want to pull my hair out. This is a tough job. There's no night that I go home where I don't want to pull my hair out. But listen, every day I wake up, I believe I've got the best job in America. There's two things I say every morning. One is a serenity prayer. As the oldest child of a single mom who had some chemical addiction issues, I say the serenity prayer every single morning to remind myself of the things I can't control, right? And in politics, there's a lot of things I can't control. And so I gotta focus on the things I can. But I also say a quote that my mentor in politics was a bushy haired college professor named Paul Wellstone. And Paul said, you can remake the world daily. That's my positive affirmation every single morning. I say that because I get to get up and help remake the world daily. For so many people who, you know, politics may seem abstract, but the consequence of our work is so real in their lives. Right? And so I just say that because I've got a great job and every day I get up, I'm looking forward to it. But every day I go home and I'm like, holy smokes, it's tough still.
- [72:14]
B
Well, you still have hair. So I think that is a beautiful thing to remember that we can wake up every day and take another opportunity to try to make this place better. Living here in Washington D.C. that is a constant reminder that is needed. Going outside, seeing the National Guard and just knowing Donald Trump's down the street. We need to remember that we can get up every day and do something. You mentioned that you in the past that the Democratic Party has focused way too much on federal races and you want to make sure that we're not just focusing on that. And so I think actually on Tuesday we got to see a really great opportunity of some down ballot races that went really well. I'm still really excited about what happened on Tuesday. We saw Zora and Mamdani when the mayoral In New York Prop 50 pass in California, Mikey Sherrill and Abigail Spamberger be elected to governorships. What do you think that tells us about where Democrats are right now and should we feel like there's a blue wave coming in the midterms?
- [73:23]
I
Well, let me answer that last one first. Where is the Democratic Party at right now? Clearly, Tuesday night showed that the Democratic Party is back. Right? The premature reports of the death of the Democratic Party were deeply exaggerated, seen throughout the course of this year, actually win after win up and down the ballot throughout the country. In fact, there were 45 elections on the ballot since Donald Trump was inaugurated before Tuesday night. And in all, 45 of them, the Democratic Party was overperforming at a historic rate. Actually, the average over performance was 16 percentage points. This is a huge, huge over performance that allowed us to put a number of seats into play as we came into those Tuesday elections. Right. And let me give you an example of this, right? In Pennsylvania earlier this year, we flipped a state Senate seat that was a plus 20% Trump district that had not elected a Democrat since the 1880s. We won that seat. And the DNC was deeply involved with Senator James Malone's race there in Iowa, Caitlin Dray flipped a state Senate seat a few weeks back, right where she broke the super majority there. And throughout the country we saw that momentum. And I was out there saying to everyone, there's wind at our back, we're going to win. And sure enough, on Tuesday we did.
- [74:38]
E
Right.
- [74:39]
I
But the one thing that's important to remember is there is a through line on what happened on Tuesday. And what that through line is, of course, in this big tent party, no one should confuse unity with unanimity in the sense that we have a lot of different ideas and opinions and thoughts on how to actually achieve our goals. But what you saw, what is the through line between Abigail Spanberg in Virginia, A Mikey Sherrill, New Jersey and of course Zoran Mamdani and many candidates is that they ran on an economic, they ran on affordability. They ran on the sense that people were frustrated in this country and needed a champion. And so I will just say this Tuesday was historic. It was the biggest off off year for Democrats ever. And it was deep and wide. It wasn't just the big five in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia and New York. Right. Georgia. We elected in Georgia two members statewide elections for the first time in 20 years that were non federal candidates to the Public Service Commission. This is AM in Mississippi. In Mississippi, where the DNC made massive six figure investments down there to help them with their legislative races. We picked up two state Senate seats to actually help break the Republican super majority. And we added another House member. Right. This is, you know, Rome wasn't built in a day. We didn't get to this point in the Democratic Party in some of these states overnight it was a very steady decline and it's not going to happen overnight. We chip away at this, what, one seat at a time.
- [76:13]
A
Right.
- [76:14]
I
And that's what we did on Tuesday night in Virginia. We picked up 13 seats, of course in the House, which was historic. But think about this. Of those 13 seats we picked up seven of those 13 seats had been represented by Republicans for 40 years. This is how historic it was. And we flipped school board seats, city council seats, mayoral ships in some of the reddest parts of this country. It was deep, it was wide. No doubt some of it had to do with the anti Trump sentiment. But let's not take away from the candidate's positive message that they ran on. Really focused on the anxieties and the economic pain that most Americans are facing right now.
- [76:54]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think affordability is something we've heard a Lot of, a lot during this election that happened on Tuesday. But also, we just hear from people in general. Vote Save America worked with a creator in Georgia around the Public Service Commission rate and when he would post our videos about the election. All through the comments, people were commenting on how high their utility bills were. And I think it was enough to get people to show up for an election for an office they probably had not heard about before. So we saw a lot of success on Tuesday. And right now, Donald Trump is very unpopular. A recent poll, a CNN poll, shows that he has a disapproval rating of 63%, which is the worst number of his first or second term. But another CNN poll show that Democratic Party's favorability is just at 29%, which is about 20 points lower than it was at the end of Donald Trump's first term. So in a moment where people are really, you know, need affordability, especially, you know, in the moment of this government shutdown, what do you think is stopping so many people from seeing the Democratic Party and Democrats in general as a proper alternative when they clearly do not like Donald Trump?
- [78:08]
I
Well, Tuesday night sort of of contradicts that, Right? Because clearly Americans throughout the country chose Democrats. But there's no doubt that we've seen a steady erosion of support within big parts of our coalition. And I would argue it's for two reasons. One is we treat voters in various parts of our coalition as just voters. We show up three months before an election, we have a transactional conversation with them where we're asking them to do something for our party, which is to vote for us, and then they don't see us for two years again. Repeat, repeat, repeat. The only time they see people from the Democratic Party is when we need something from them. And then they keep voting for us, hoping, hoping that maybe we'll actually improve their lives, strengthen their communities, make a difference for, for them, and we don't, their lives don't get better. And so there's no doubt that with. We've seen a steady, steady decline for many years now with big parts of our coalition because people don't feel like we're standing up and fighting for them. Now, last year there was research, and it should have been the canary in the coal mine for Democrats. It showed that for the first time in history, the perceptions of the two parties, political parties, had fallen, flipped with the majority of Americans believing that the Republican Party best represents the interests of the middle class, the working class, and the poor. And the Democratic Party is the party of the wealthy and the elite. Well, it is crazy for sure. But sure enough, the only two groups that we over performed with in the presidential contest last year, college educated voters and wealthy households. That's not who we are as a Democratic Party. And so. So the other thing I would argue is this, right now, in this moment, when things are so existential, people want fighters. The biggest divide in this party right now is not ideological as much as people want to make it about ideology. The biggest fight in our party right now, or the biggest divide in our party right now is between those who are actually using the power that have to stand up and fight for what we believe in and those who are sitting on the sidelines. That's what people want to see, is people actually standing up. You know, because let me ask you all this, let me ask you all this seriously. If you are not willing in this moment to fight like hell for the things you believe in, do you really believe in them at all?
- [80:44]
E
No.
- [80:45]
I
And that's why you see our numbers, where they're at now, they're changing, right? Because I can tell you, you see it across the country, Democrats standing up. You saw that at those no Kings rallies. You saw that throughout this country, people standing up, using the power they have, using their voices, using their platforms and pushing back. I have no doubt that that's changing. But let me end with this. Don't mistake what a midterm is about. Midterms are never a referendum on the party office of power. They're a referendum on the party in power. And Donald Trump's numbers just hit the lowest ever, as did the Republican Party's. And so don't get me wrong, we got to work on our brand. We got to stand up and fight for people. We got to give them a positive vision of what we would do to strengthen their lives and communities. But at the end of the day, the 26 midterms are going to be about Republicans and what they've done and continue to do to destroy this country.
- [81:41]
B
Country. Yeah. I just want to follow up on that. I'm not sure how many of you were at the Podcast of America show yesterday, but Jasmine Crockett, Dan interviewed her and she made an interesting point when she was talking about possibly running for Senate in Texas. And she said, you know, we need a candidate who can actually bring people out who wouldn't have voted before. And that Donald Trump has done that. Zara. Mom, Donnie has done that. That's something Barack Obama. And they inspired people who wouldn't normally participate. And you also mentioned kind of the people who we did well with last year. And so even if. And I'm a Democrat because I do care about people. I grew up with government assistance. Like, I recognize that those programs give a lot of people the ability to live a prosperous life in this country. But I think a lot of people don't connect the dots for that now for the Democratic Party. And so what do candidates, lawmakers, need to think about when they're running, but also governing because there's a reason people don't feel like the policies that will help them are being passed. And, of course, Republicans are, like, a factor in there. But what needs to change on our side so that people actually feel like they're not just, like, fighting in front of the microphone, but pushing for policies that actually have an impact?
- [82:57]
I
Well, I think it's a very fair critique of the Democrats. And I will say that one of my favorite quotes is from my friend Ayanna Pressley, who said, those closest to pain should be closest to power. And I think we don't need more sympathetic leaders. We need more empathetic leaders. And I think Congresswoman Crockett is exactly right. We need people who know what it's like to be unhoused, to be, you know, not be able to put food on the table, to worry about where their next check is gonna come from and how they're gonna be able to live their lives and aff lives. Right. You know, I mentioned that I'm the oldest son of a single mom. My mom had me when she was 15 years old. She raised four kids by herself, and she struggled mightily. And as a home cleaner, I will tell you, she worked her ass off. You know, this idea, you know, that people who receive SNAP like we did or on Medicaid like we were, are somehow, you know, lazy and undeserving or they don't work. I mean, my mom worked her ass off, literally. So.
- [84:07]
B
Take your time.
- [84:07]
G
It is.
- [84:08]
B
I cry every day watching the news.
- [84:10]
G
So it takes time.
- [84:12]
I
It is shameful, shameful what this administration is doing. I think the reality is, last Friday night, Donald Trump is sitting in Mar a Lago with his rich billionaire friends having a Great Gatsby on the eve of kicking 42 million families off of nutrition benefits. Right. This is how soulless and depraved and just backwards these people are. I mean, I say this truly because to your question about the Democratic Party, people want fighters. They want people who've had struggle. They want empathetic leaders who understand what this is about. About. I do this for very personal reasons. And I will tell you, at the end of the day, what pisses me off is people who treat politics like a sport. We pat ourselves on the back and we say, well, we won an election and then we go home. Or we hang our head and say, we lost election, while we'll dust ourselves off and we'll win the next one. It's not a sport when you lose elections. People's lives literally are shaped, shattered. People who are hanging on by a thread, who are just hoping for a chance. That's what this is about. So I did not run for this position to come here to ask for permission or to make friends. I wasn't supported by the billionaires. I wasn't supported by the establishment. Most of the elected officials supported my opponent. I came in here to change the way we do things, to win elections again, so we can actually improve people's lives. Lives. That's what it's about for me. It's a tough job, for sure. But I will tell you right now, we're making a lot of progress. And in the end, I'm not going to rest until we get this bastard out of the White House. Then I'll take a breath and then we'll keep going. So.
- [86:12]
B
I agree. We got to get rid of Trump. I do think it's really important, and I think we're seeing more of it, but the difference between sympathy and empathy. And it's really different when you encounter, I'm sure everyone in here has knocked the door, canvassed, talked to voters before, but when you do that, you hear a lot different conversations than what we hear in the media. And it's interesting. I go on MSNBC sometimes and the question feel so different. Like, we're always talking about politics like a sport and not the human element of it, but as someone who, again, benefited from government programs, it just feels really disconnected. But again, on Tuesday, we saw really great outcomes in these elections. And again, affordability was a really big part of that. And so last year, in the 2024 election, we spent a lot of time talking about the threat that Donald Trump. Trump was and is to democracy, which I think resonates with people who listen to Pod Save America, people who watch msnbc. But it seems affordability is something that actually got through to people. Do you think that that is a message that everyone will come around for the midterms? And if we do, do you think that's one that Democrats can effectively deliver so that people can have that trust that it's not there right now?
- [87:36]
I
Yeah. I mean, look, we saw this last year in the election, right? In 2020, we were out there defending President Biden's excellent economic record, right? You know, high GDP, real wage growth for the first time in 30 years, low unemployment, the best economy of any industrialized nation coming out of a pandemic, booming stock market. You know, I'm the first card carrying union member to be elected a DNC chair. And I will tell you, most of the working people that I would talk about when I'd say that, that the economy is great, they'd look at me and say, are you kidding me? What planet do you live on? I can barely put food on my table, right? I can't afford my mortgage, my, you know, gas prices are off the charts, right? I am struggling right now and you're telling me the economy is good. And that was true last year. And it's only gotten worse under this president, right, with the tariffs and his destructive economic policies. You know, this guy promised people on day one, won he was going to help them. Why did he win so many parts of our coalition, why did he win with so many people who had voted with Democrats for years? Is because they needed some hope, they needed some relief. They thought Donald Trump and the Republicans were going to give that to them. And they've done nothing except push policies, tax breaks for their rich, policies that help the people in this country that already have the most on the backs of the people who are struggling just to get ahead. That's why we saw the win we did on Tuesday. People swung back heavily our way. Latino voters, which he won big in 24, swung back our way. And we're now leading with Latino voters across the country. Independent voters swung back our way. Right. Young voters, including young men, swung back our our way. But my admonition to us is to never, ever, ever take any group for granted. Not to assume that just because that swung our way that that means we're going to win in 26. I'm confident we will win in 26, but I'm not complacent. There is a reason when I was in Minnesota, we never lost a statewide election. And it's because we did not rest on our laurels. We did not take communities for granted. We were always organizing year round, having convers people around their hopes and their dreams and eventually around shared values and then eventually around politics and campaigns. And my admonition to us right now is to not get cocky about what happened on Tuesday. It was a great night and we should celebrate, but let's keep our foot on the gas, as I said to folks, and I was probably like Debbie Downer on election night because all the DNC folks were celebrating. And I said, it's a great night, but I have bad news. Tomorrow is the first day of the next election. As I said, I am not going to be satisfied until we get this guy out of the White House and until we elect Democrats who actually give a shit about people and start making a difference.
- [90:43]
B
Yeah. Last question. Before I get into some questions that we actually got from our audience following, following up on the question I just asked in your answer, I think a lot of the shift we saw back was a reaction to Trump and the economy. But as you said, we can't assume that that means Democrats will keep those voters forever. So as we look forward not just to the midterms, but to the future of the party in this moment, what if you can offer it in two or three sentences, what would you say is the Democratic message for what we stand for right now that would pull people in more permanently?
- [91:24]
I
I think this has always been our message, but we strayed away from it. It's no matter where you're from, no matter where you live, no matter who you love or who you are, every person, every person in this country deserves an opportunity to get ahead, not just get by. And that means that we believe that everyone should have an opportunity to climb the economic ladder, build a better life for their family. I mean, I will tell you, as I said, if it wasn't for a snap, when I was a kid, we went to had food. If it wasn't for Medicaid, we went to had health care. And if it wasn't for a community who gave a damn about four little kids and their struggling mom, I wouldn't be standing here today. This is the message for the Democratic Party. This is and has always been our message. And I will sum it up in something that my first boss and mentor and hero, Paul Wellstone, said, because I think this should be the slogan of the Democratic Party, we all do better when we all do better, because the all matters here, every single one of us matters. And everyone should be able to get ahead. It's as simple as that. Right? And that's as crazy as it is. This American dream is so powerful in this country. People believe if I just work hard, I can actually get ahead. And so many people are. But they're feeling like that dream is a far off, distant reality that they'll never achieve. We know as Democrats there's structural and systemic barriers in the way of People actually getting that opportunity. And our job is to remove those barriers. But nonetheless, we believe, like everyone in this country, that that dream should be realized. And that's what our message is. And there's so many policies underneath us of that. But at the core, that should be our guiding star. And that's what we have to get back to.
- [93:12]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to be biased. So we went out to our friend over the POD subscribers and our Vote Save America community to see what questions they had for you. And why I'm being biased is because I see that my county party chair offered a question. So I'm going to ask her a question. First from Liz in Oxford, North Carolina. She asked, can you talk about how the DNC can support Oregon organizing? Or maybe you already are all the way down the ballot, not just at the national or state level, but at even the precinct or county party level.
- [93:47]
I
We have to. And we're already doing that at the dnc. It's really important when we run coordinated campaigns that we don't just focus on federal power or just the top of the ticket races. As I mentioned, our own indifference over the years to school board elections, for instance. Right. Has resulted in the far right taking over school boards. Some of our biggest school districts in the country were controlled by, by the Moms for Liberty group where they were banning books, they were whitewashing history, they were attacking our children. That's as much on them as it is on us because we weren't competing there. It is important for us to realize that every office has been politicized by the far right. It's a long term plan to build power around their agenda in every public policy arena. So when we ignore school boards, when we ignore county boards, when we ignore mayoral ships, it's at our own peril. Now what you've seen in this DNC already, first time in 30 years, we established a national coordinated campaign table. When we made investments this year, we didn't just make investments in the top of the ticket races. We invested deep down ballot. We're working with the Democratic Mayors association, the Democratic Municipal association, we're working with the national Democratic county officials. We're working with all of the organizations out there that are trying to build power at every level of government. We made deep six figure investments in Pennsylvania around those Suprem court races. Right. To make sure those billionaires couldn't actually buy those seats. We made deep investments, as I said, in Mississippi and those state legislative races. Right. We made deep investments in municipal races throughout the country. Because we believe the way you actually reemerge as a party is not from the top down, but from the grassroots up. And the last thing I'll say on this is, look, people are in this town and what drives me crazy about Washington, they are obsessed with. Obsessed with what happens here.
- [95:40]
B
Yeah.
- [95:40]
I
Elections aren't won in D.C. they're one in the States, on the ground, in local communities. And if we're going to rebuild our party in this moment, we have to build it from the grassroots up.
- [95:51]
B
Yeah. Yeah. When we started Vote Save America, something that I had heard throughout my career and I wanted to make sure we didn't do was the people in D.C. always try to tell us what to do and they don't know what's happening here. And so I think you're absolutely right that we, we have to start there. Another question that we have from, I think it's Brock, who is a friend of the pod. He said we often, they said we often hear that we should have our own version of Project 2025. But people have a tendency to jump right to policy without articulating, you know, honestly, this. You answered this question for me already. Okay, so I. So I'm going to skip over to one last question and then we'll close out here. But it's one that I think is really important in this current media age. One of the biggest challenges is the volume of disinformation on social media and the news. Is there a way where the DNC could have a two way channel so we can utilize both the power of grassroots organizations and the dnc? And that is Marie from Michigan asking.
- [96:55]
I
Well, this is critical because frankly, you know, when you think about the movement, as I do often. Right. Because I come from movement spaces, the DNC is a part of it and certainly a large part of it. But what I've been inspired by is a number of these resistance groups this year, like Indivisible Right, who put on those no Kings rallies. It was just amazing what they were able to do to harness that energy. And what we have to realize is that there are many people who are part of those no Kings rallies who don't consider themselves Democrats, but they actually share the same, same goal, which is to actually defeat this authoritarian regime and build power around the things we all care about. So we have to work with those organizations, those outside organizations in meaningful ways to join hands. And frankly, they gave us a shot in the arm that we needed, all of us needed throughout this country to get off of our asses, stop hanging our heads get over the last election and roll up your sleeves and go get to work. So we absolutely have to work with them. The second piece on this, though, is, you know, in terms of the misinformation that's out there, I'm really proud of what we've done at the DNC, because think about this. There were 18 million Democrats who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 who did not vote for Kamala Harris in 24. Now, 8 million of them showed up and voted, either voted for Trump on the ballot, some other candidate, or just skipped the presidential. But 10 million Democrats stayed home in the third closest presidential election in 100. And there's reasons why they stayed home, a whole host of reasons. But in our research, one of the things we found is that misinformation and disinformation and the prevalence of it really contributed to a lot of those folks actually checking out instead of checking in. And we brought folks into the DNC from the Obama and Biden administrations who worked in Homeland Security, intel and military to help us really think through, through how we combat misinformation and disinformation in real time. And we're doing that right now using AI and other social listening tools to actually be able to monitor and identify in real time this misinformation campaign. And it's foreign actors, Russia, China, other foreign actors who are influencing our elections through misinformation. It's also domestic actors, right? Billionaires, corporations, others who are actually influencing in ways to get people to check out of elections. And so we are combating that. What was once torrent of misinformation is now a trickle. And so there's so many things we're working on. I'm proud of. Let me end with this because I know we're out of time because I want to give you guys something that is really important. We are going to win, but it's not a certainty. None of us should be complacent. We got to keep our foot on the gas. I've always said we run like we're 20 points behind, even if we're 20 points ahead. Let's celebrate those victories on Tuesday because they're well earned and so many of you worked your asses off to get there. But then let's a take get back to work and understand that there are people literally counting on us to win in 2026. Thank you for having me.
- [100:01]
B
Thank you. Thank you for answering the question I wanted to ask to close out. So I didn't want us to close out on a low note. So thank you for closing there and thank you all again for joining us today. I'm really excited that we were able to chat with you today and I hope this has given people some more perspective and insight to what's happening in at the dnc, how the Chairman is thinking about his work moving forward. And the last thing I'll say is Vote Save America actually has an Action hub here today. You know, a lot of the work that the DNC does is a lot of the kinds of work that Vote Save America is doing. And so we have an action Hub. There's a stage, there's a lounge. You we're hoping that you all can connect and just spend some time together. But I'm actually headed over there now to have a conversation with Julie Kahn from ActBlue and we'll also have workshops on how to run for office and dig into the details of what organizing tactics are working now. So if anyone is interested in heading over there, we'll have some programming happening on stage there. But thank you again for coming. Thank you for coming to such an early conversation and enjoy the rest of the conference.
- [101:11]
A
If you have ideas at the the end of of the episode, don't forget to tell us what you think. You can email me at assembly required crooked.com or leave us a voicemail and you and your questions and comments might be Featured on the pod. Our number is 213-293-9509. Assembly Required is a Crooked Media production. Our lead show producer is Lacey Roberts and our associate producer is Farah Safari. Kiril Palaviv is our video producer. This episode was recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Our theme song is by Vasilis Fotopoulos. Thank you to Matt De Groat, Kyle Seglin, Tyler Boozer, Ben Hethcote and Princess Priyanka Muntha for production support. Our executive producers are Katie Long and me, Stacey Abrams.
- [102:24]
H
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